New Thread: Favorite Restaurant in . . . Dupont Circle

Let's get a quick list going of people's favorite restaurants in the most restaurant-packed areas of the city. I'll start a couple of these off, and hopefully others will pick up the ball and run with it. I only really eat out in a few areas, though, so I may start off a couple lists with a blank!

My current favorite place in Dupont is just a little lunch place but they make things fresh in front of you, everything I've ordere there has been good so far, and their portions are substantial but not disgustingly huge. The Dutch Mill Cafe, just south of the Circle, has great deli sandwiches, interesting salads and roll-ups, an extensive grill, and also a selection of pastas and sauces, with everything going for about $4.50 - $6.50. Particularly good are the Chicken Tender Rollup, the Fettucine Alfredo with Chicken, the grilled portobello mushroom and veggie sandwich and the Barbecued Pulled Turkey Sandwich. Sure, it's just lunch food, but lunch doesn't have to mean low-quality and mass-produced.

If others start to add to this list, I'll come back and post a real "restaurant" recommendation.

The Dutch Mill??!!??? (or should I add #$!Q$!%#$!@$). These clowns can't anything straight. I order a reuben with mustard; they serve it with russian; I remind them I wanted russian; so they scrape off the russian and slap on some mustard. Pathetic. And the Dutch Mill on Indiana isn't worthy of the name, either.

Dupont Circle has some fine places to eat....

For example, Johnny's Half Shell on P Street, an off-shoot of Adams-Morgan's Cashion's Eat Place. Good New Orleans style seafood...exquisite appetizers. Unfortunately, not cheap.

Pizzeria Paradiso...the only place in DC (says me) for edible pizza. More like the pizza in Napoli. Very noisy.

Skewers...new age Middle Eastern about two blocks east of the Circle. They have been serving delicious and creative food for more than twenty years.

Obelisk...the same owner as Pizzeria Paradiso. A high class Tuscan restaurant with an expensive, but good value, prix fixe (prezzo fisso) menu. Casually elegant.

Pesce. Also in the 2000 block of P Street. An informal spot with great fish and good pastas...Crowded and not cheap.

Jim Zurer
Washington DC

Agreed, on Paradiso. By far the best pizza in the DC metro area. Johnny's Half Shell is mediocre, on a par with its predecessor, the Blue Plate. Avoid.

Mind you, the last time I was IN dupont circle was in '89 when I was a student at American University, but I used to hang out at Zorba's all the time.

Is it still there? Was one of the the few places to get decent gyros and falafel in DC.

Still there, always will be, at least so long as it keeps appearing in European "DC on 25 Deutsch Marks pro Tag" guidebooks. When I'm starvin' like Marvin and short on cash, I bite. But only then. . .